UO22+/protein complexation sites screening

Uranium(VI) is likely to make strong coordination with some proteins in the plasma and in targeted cells. In the frame of a nuclear toxicology program, a biochemical strategy has been developed to identify these targets in complex biological media. The present work focuses on an approach based on the screening of 3D protein structures in order to identify proteins able to bind UO22+ and the corresponding complexation sites in these proteins. Our preliminary results show that indeed a few proteins display a high affinity to uranyl salt. The site of interaction may be mapped using molecular modeling, providing coherent results with the biochemical data. (authors)